Better Home Perennial Dream Gardens Free Magazine

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Photograph: Richard Bryant for Arcaid

Many intrepid self-builders will tell you that the rewards of building a home from scratch, or completely renovating an existing property, is well worth the months of anxiety and disruption such a big project invariably involves. This series explores the ups and downs experienced by three families during their home-building journey. This week, meet the Berry family…

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Photograph: Richard Bryant for Arcaid

Deborah Berry, 47 and her husband Aidan, 45, had a stroke of luck when they managed to swap properties with almost neighbours, exchanging their existing smaller property for a larger 1990s new build without the need to involve estate agents. The bigger property was badly in need of an update. Deborah, a sales manager for a healthcare company and Aidan, a practice manager for a GP surgery, who have three grown up children of whom the youngest, Jake, 19, still lives at home, took the challenge head on.

"We were looking to move house because we wanted a larger property and knew the estate that we wanted to live on, because as it wasn't far from our previous one and we'd walk past the house most evenings with our dog. We'd looked for a while and amazingly, it worked out perfectly as the owners we purchased from bought our property! It was a straight swap and a stress free move in January 2011, from the old one to a new build style house of 20 years old. Our previous house had been extended and renovated, so we were no strangers to this and the fact the house was so dated didn't phase us at all.

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Living room before

Photograph: Richard Bryant for Arcaid

It hadn't been touched since it was built, and with its old kitchen and whisper pink bathroom suite, it badly needed a makeover. We had a budget for the renovation, but we decided not to rush into it, as we wanted to plan carefully and think about how best to renovate the space. When we moved in, we had the house painted to freshen it up but the real work didn't start until February 2012. We got planning permission and used a local architect and building firm to create a two-storey extension at the back of the house. This gave us a large open plan kitchen/family room and a separate lounge. Upstairs we created a large family bathroom with our dream roll top bath and extended the master bedroom. The highlight of the project was arriving back to the house after a 2 week holiday, to see the extension all knocked through to one space – it was a huge light filled space which became our kitchen family space and we spend most of our time in this room.

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Work starts on the extension

Photograph: Richard Bryant for Arcaid

We feel that we've created a lovely family home with a modern yet classic feel, which is our style. We didn't want anything too modern, but designed in a style that would stand the test of time. Although we still have a 'to do' list, including landscaping the garden next summer, we are delighted with our progress and have taken inspiration from House Beautiful! Our kitchen is from Magnet and is light oak and as I love cooking I wanted plenty of ovens to cater for our large extended family. As well as our son Jake, we have two daughters, Dani who is 27 and Deanne who is 23, who both live nearby and we also have two grandchildren, Charlie 6 and Lara, 3.

We also wanted the kitchen to incorporate seating and dining and we've achieved this. Our flooring is also solid oak which is practical for such a high traffic area and we've created plenty of light by having three bifold doors and a sky light in this space.

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The completed living room is bright and spacious

Photograph: Richard Bryant for Arcaid

The house is painted in Farrow & Ball paint colours throughout, with shades of grey in the kitchen and Great White in the bedrooms. I love the chalky finish and the sense of flow and continuity this achieves. My favourite parts of the house are the master bedroom and the bathroom. We decided to extend upstairs to give us a large bathroom as it was my ambition to have a luxurious roll top bath. My husband teases me and says we only built the house to incorporate the big bath – and it's true, there's nothing better after a long day driving than having a long soak with the lights on low and music playing through the ceiling speakers. Heaven!

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The large upstairs bathroom allowed enough space for Deborah's dream roll top bath

Photograph: Richard Bryant for Arcaid

At the start of the build, Aidan and I made a pact not to get stressed about the mess. As we'd renovated our last house, we knew what to expect and just got on with it. The builders were very respectful about the fact we had to live in the house during the work. Mostly the build was fine but we did have two leaks under the new oak floor when the joiner went through water pipes with nails. Currently we're having the gardens landscaped and the next job will be to save up for new furniture for downstairs and to replace our en suite in the guest bedroom. I love adding to and changing pieces, as it keeps the house evolving.

HOME PROFILE

The Property: A 1990s four bedroom house on an estate in North Shields, Tyne and Wear.

The price: It originally cost £220,000 and is now worth £285,000.

The budget: The work cost around £60,000.

Time taken: Six months.

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